December 07, 2011

I don't know if Luciano Cilio knew Third Ear Band's music at the time when he composed and recorded his only one solo album titled "Discorsi del presente" [Speeches on the present], published in 1977 on vinyl by EMI (3C064 18253)in a limited edition of few copies.

But if you listen to one of the five album tracks, "Quarto quadro della conoscenza" [Fourth picture of knowledge], I think you can find some right references to the music of Sweeney & C., maybe more about the mood than the sounds.

For me (an Italian underground music writer) it has been an incredible and guiltily recent discovery - his record a great masterpiece of Pure Art that can be placed among other great Italian works of that time - Aktuala's, Claudio Rocchi's "Volo Magico" I & II, Lino Capra Vaccina's"Antico Adagio", first Battiato albums, Alan Sorrenti's "Aria"...

Born in Naples in 1950, he was a self-taught composer and multi-instrumentalist musician, playing guitar, sitar, piano, bass and mandola. After collaborating with other non conventional artists (as Alan Sorrenti and Shawn Phillips) during '60's and '70's, he committed suicide in 1983 at 33, leaving us an album and few unrealised tracks (all included in a 2004 reissue on a 500 copies limited CD edition titled "Dell'universo assente", now sold out)... establishment ignoring him (but thanks his pupil and friend musician Girolamo De Simone we can now listen to his works).

Luciano Cilio - "Interludio" (1977)

Do you think he was a real genius? I think so and I hope you can enjoy his oblique sounds that remind me the Thirds, but also Popol Vuh, some acoustic dark English folker (i.e Nick Drake), the blessed Linda Perhacs of "Parallelograms", Bill Fay's second album, experimental musicians as John Hassel or Bill Frisell, or avantgarde composers as Mortan Feldman, John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi.

WRITE TO GHETTORAGA

Search This Archive

Translate

About the editor

Luca Chino Ferrari (b. 1963) is an Italian (underground) paperback writer.
Since 1985 he has written and translated books about folk and rock musicians as Third Ear Band, Robyn Hitchcock, Captain Beefheart, Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, Syd Barrett & the Pink Floyd for the main Italian home publishing. He met Syd Barrett in 1986 and did contribute to the reunion of the Third Ear Band during the '80s. His last book, published in 2015 for English Gonzo Multimedia, is a biography about the English talented jazz piano player Mike Taylor. He runs a personal Web site (in Italian) at http://la-dea-bicefala.webnode.it/

NEW THIRD EAR BAND RECORD ON SALE!

Click on the picture to buy the CD.

TEB recording at Abbey Road Sudios in February 1971

click on the picture to watch the video!

Paul Buckmaster at Hyde Park (June 7th, 1969).

"Third Ear Band music is a reflection of the universe as magic play illusion simply because it could not possibly be anything else. Words cannot describe this ecstatic dance of sound, or explain the alchemical repetiton seeking and sometimes finding archetypal formes, elements and rhythms...".

Third Ear Band live at Hyde Park (June 7th,1969)

Read "Necromancers of the drifting West"!!!

A book on the Third Ear Band edited by Luca Ferrari (published by Stampa Alternativa, Rome 1997). WITH THE FIRST ORIGINAL VERSION OF "ABELARD & HELOISE" SOUNDTRACK!

Third Ear Band at the Roundhouse (London, May 30th 1969).

As alike or unlike as blades of grass or clouds...

"The music is the music of the Druids, released from the unconscious by the alchemical process, orgasmic in its otherness, religious in its oneness communicating beauty and magic via abstract sounds whilst playing without ego enables the musicians to reach a trance-like stage, a "high" in which the music produces itself. Each piece is as alike or unalike as blades of grass or clouds".

Pseudo-mystical...

“The trouble is that you can't be mystical without being called pseudo-mystical, and it's the fault of our previous education. I'm at Glastonbury most of the time, but we're all completely honest about it. We'll even use it honestly to make money, because the ancient Egyptians who were into it all said that you had to be rich because only then can you resist temptation”.

"ALCHEMY"

"Alchemy" (Harvest 1969)

A block to communication.

“I've always felt that music should be pure. If you have lyrics, you are preaching in a way. Somehow words are a block to communication. It's almost impossible for me to explain exactly how I feel about this, that's why I'm a musician. The only way to really understand what I mean, is to firstly listen to a pop group and then listen to us, and then I hope you will know what we're trying to say."

NOTES FROM OVERGROUND

“No announcements, numbers lasting 15 to 20 minutes, art form or con?

This might be valid criticism of (A) Thunderstorm (B) a cricket (C) Third Ear Band.

Their approach to music is different because there is no duality, no conflict between the natural element of chance and the human element of control, did the moon ask to be reflected in the water? If it wasn’t for the trees would the wind know when it was blowing? Paul Minns says there are some very beautiful forests in Hyde Park, trying to put titles to music is rather like trying to answer the question where does my hand when it becomes my fist”.

The Centipede

"The Centipede was happy, quite, until a Toad in fun said: "Pray, which leg goes after which?".This worked his mind to such a pitch, he lay distracted in a ditch considering how to run".(Third Ear Band, 1970)

TEB at Isle of Wight Festival, August 1969 (photo: Barry Plummer).

"Music from Macbeth" (Harvest 1972)

OTHER TEB related videos on You Tube

Loading...

Third Ear Band - "Experiences" (Harvest 1976)

WEIRD SCENES

“We'd rather people called us a pop group. We do ragas, that aren't really ragas at all, and unless we get a turned on promoter, we get into some weird scenes. At Norwich once, when the promoter saw the audience sitting down and closing their eyes to our music, he accused us of putting them to sleep! Complete paranoia. So I imagine we wouldn't do too well on the Pop Proms”.

VERY MUCH UNDERGROUND

“It's just a question of advertising. We've stayed very much Underground - no photos - and I think this was necessary so people wouldn't put us in a bag. We'd rather the just came up and heard us without ANY preconceived ideas. I suppose it is a bit shattering to see violins and cellos”.

Third Ear Band - "New Forecasts from the Third Ear Almanac" (ADN Records 1989)

90% improvisation...

"I'd say ninety per cent of our music is improvisation. It's not really Indian music, although we use a drone instead of the usual bass line riffs. The music draws from everywhere.

"I think our appeal is that audiences can draw their own thing from us. We make no announcements and none of the numbers have titles. People in colleges we play come up after and say they can get fantastic images in their mind when they listen. We can offer a complete dream. The old Celtic bards used to have the same ability".

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

“Third Ear Band’s new album “Magic Music” isabout music as pure vibrations, as such it can be linked with colour because colour is vibration. It can even be linked to the music ofthe spheres which states that the vibrations of the planets can be heard with the third ear (silence). The free ragas that we play are modal, each note can be heard as a sound-colour that produces its own mood.Our rhythms come from all overthe world, and we use these ideasand many others to try to make a new world music”.